[Q] Fix "can't connect to camera" after app crash without reboot? - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Tried to find the answer to this, but I only seem to find threads with people having this error all the time or just rebooting if they are in a similar situation to fix it; I trying to get more info about it.
Right now I am running a CM11 nightly of KitKat 4.4.1 on a VZW Note II, however I have had this issue with other devices, carriers, Android versions, etc. so I have always assumed it is just the way Android works.
Basically if an app that is currently using the camera (Camera app, barcode scanner, etc) crashes or hangs and gets force-closed, opening any camera app after that seems to always give me either a "can't connect to camera" error or a black screen instead of the viewfinder. In these cases, a simple reboot fixes the issue and I can use the camera again, but this is inconvenient for two reasons:
1. A reboot on my phone takes 45-60 seconds, by which time whatever I wanted a picture of is usually gone or changed.
2. Rebooting means that any apps that don't save the data constantly but run in the background are restarted and I lose the progress. Mainly I am referring to Chrome incognito tabs, but also apps that don't save in-progress data such as puzzle games or video players.
With my limited knowledge of Linux and my slightly less limited knowledge of operating systems in general, I know that sometimes a temporary lock file is Created to prevent other apps/programs from modifying or accessing a file or program until the lock is released. Does that kind of situation apply here, such as a camera lock file being created when camera access is started and then not able to be released if the app crashes.? Also, if that does apply, would manually deleting the lock file or creating a script that does it for me when it is run allow access to the camera again without rebooting? And if that doesn't apply, is there any way to regain camera access without rebooting when this occurs?
Thanks in advance,
Opalelement

apk to restart camera without rebooting phone
I'm in the same situation. This app restarts the camera quickly and so far it works..
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2293287
Enjoy until the problem is really fixed!
opalelement said:
Tried to find the answer to this, but I only seem to find threads with people having this error all the time or just rebooting if they are in a similar situation to fix it; I trying to get more info about it.
Right now I am running a CM11 nightly of KitKat 4.4.1 on a VZW Note II, however I have had this issue with other devices, carriers, Android versions, etc. so I have always assumed it is just the way Android works.
Basically if an app that is currently using the camera (Camera app, barcode scanner, etc) crashes or hangs and gets force-closed, opening any camera app after that seems to always give me either a "can't connect to camera" error or a black screen instead of the viewfinder. In these cases, a simple reboot fixes the issue and I can use the camera again, but this is inconvenient for two reasons:
1. A reboot on my phone takes 45-60 seconds, by which time whatever I wanted a picture of is usually gone or changed.
2. Rebooting means that any apps that don't save the data constantly but run in the background are restarted and I lose the progress. Mainly I am referring to Chrome incognito tabs, but also apps that don't save in-progress data such as puzzle games or video players.
With my limited knowledge of Linux and my slightly less limited knowledge of operating systems in general, I know that sometimes a temporary lock file is Created to prevent other apps/programs from modifying or accessing a file or program until the lock is released. Does that kind of situation apply here, such as a camera lock file being created when camera access is started and then not able to be released if the app crashes.? Also, if that does apply, would manually deleting the lock file or creating a script that does it for me when it is run allow access to the camera again without rebooting? And if that doesn't apply, is there any way to regain camera access without rebooting when this occurs?
Thanks in advance,
Opalelement
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

the descsJu
majedsahli said:
I'm in the same situation. This app restarts the camera quickly and so far it works..
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2293287
Enjoy until the problem is really fixed!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same problem with my Jiayu G4T (4.2.1). The app was able to recover the camera successfully! Many thanks!

Related

[Q] com.google.process.gapps crashes

Hi everyone. It's been two days since the process com.google.process.gapps has started crashing, "stopping unexpectedly" whenever i use the browser on my tab.
Reading the error report, it seems (not 100% sure about that) this is somehow related to the bookmarks sync with Chrome, but i can't find a way to disable this.
Has anyone exprerienced the same issue? Any known solution? Thanks
Go to settings > accounts and sync, click on your account then uncheck everything, then manually sync everything one by one to see what is causing the error.
Then go to manage apps and clear the cache of all the problem apps and re-sync them once you're done. It might take a few tries but it should take care of that error.
I'll try that as soon as possible, thanks!
browser sync was causing this for me
I believe that bookmarks sync no long works with galaxy tab. Google changed something on their end that should have worked fine(it still works on the xoom, transformer, etc.) but since samsung changed a bunch of stuff for no apparent reason, it is now broken. samsung is so stupid sometimes..
So you're basically suggesting that bookmarks sync should stay off to avoid problems like that?
well I don't really know. I never used bookmark sync in the first place. I'm just going by what is said in this article.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/perlow/br...gle-or-the-oems/17840?tag=mantle_skin;content
It turns out that at some point Google started making some changes to the backend systems that handle Google’s user account data. There’s nothing wrong with them doing this; it happens all the time. In fact, no other Android 3.1 tablets had any issues at all with the changes, and their bookmark sync continued to work without a blip on the radar.
Not Samsung, however... I did some digging around the internet, and it’s become somewhat well-known amongst Android developers that Samsung actually modifies core source code in the Android operating system that handles communicating with Google’s backend data services.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, that's a pity. I had just started to think it was a useful tool to keep track of unread web pages between work, home and outside...
Let's hope Samsung somehow fixes that.
PS: disabling bookmarks sync actually stops the process from crashing, I think I've solved (if we could really say so...) the issue. Thanks to all!
Thanks, disabling auto sync for browser has stopped the error. Samsung developers need to fix this - I can't auto sync my gmail
What am I missing here?
Ok be prepared, this post may be rather long winded however I will try my best to prevent that. I have a Tmobile G2x I purchased on launch date. Ive not attempted to Root, change roms, or anything of the sort. (as much as I always wanted to, I always felt that my skills were not good enough to attempt these ideas no matter how easy they may seem. I just did not want to be the cause of screwing up my phone that I paid dearly for)
So I have a friend who claims to be the master (of disaster so it turns out) of rooting androids and such. He stops by my house just to hang out and eventualy convinces me to let him root my phone and install CM7. Within a few minutes the phone was rooted (super1click) and was running CM7 release candidate. (I really dont know what all these things truly are but I drilled him for answers once he jacked up my phone and left me with a half-bricked phone) So he installed Rom manager and convinced me to upgrade to the premium version via marketplace so I did. He was then showing me how easy it was to flash new roms at the touch of a few buttons. He put on some other rom which looked like CM7 but claimed to have extra tweaks. It worked fine. A few minutes later he put on some Faux Rom which gave a boot up screen like my old Nexus One did. (Multicolored X) It seemed to work fine as well. Then he said lets check out the nightly CM7 Rom so he put it on. (however I dont think it ever actually put CM7 back on.-still on Faux?) Thats when things got crazy.
Now I get the com.google.process.gapps force close message all the time. He tried to fix it for 4 hours and finally gave up. Here is what I know he/we tried: After searching the internet for hours we tried everyone elses ideas. Clearing calenders cashes, un syncing, etc. We did about 40 factory resets. We have tried to install my backup (which was from BEFORE he even touched my phone) and upon holding both volume rockers and plugging in USB (no battery installed) and it still does nothing. Windows recognizes device but phone screen stays black. Tried Debug mode while doing this as well. If we hold the volume down button and power the little install bar comes on the screen and it does its thing (whatever that is) and goes right back to the way it was. I keep getting the gapps message all the time. After factory reset I cant even type in my gmail address to start the initial setup of the phone. The force close keeps cutting me off. If I type fast, I can sync the account but I cant use market whatsoever. Tried installing Rom manager to re-flash but just sticks at starting download and gapps pops up again.
My son is starting school tomorrow and he has a medical condition. I NEED this phone to communicate with the school nurse via emails and such. As of now I can only text, call, or surf web all while dodging force closes. If ANYONE out there can please help me get my phone back to normal Id greatly appreciate it. Im sure its something easy but as I said before, Im not good at this thing and thats why I never attempted it myself. Your welcome to submit answers here or PM me your phone # if you want to walk me through it on the phone. (I have a landline phone to talk to you on) Thanks in advance for everyones time and Im sorry this ended up being so long.
Hello,
Based on your post, I would suggest that you search your phone's development forum on XDA for a compatable clockwork recovery mod which will install a custom recovery on your phone. The thread will give you instructions on how to do so and how to enter recovery mode.
You can then enter the 'Backup and Restore' part of the recovery and restore your backup manually without using ROM manager. If this doesn't work, I would suggest that you then download the ROM of your choice and install it from the clockwork recovery. Make sure you clear user data and wipe the cache before you install.
Any fix yet? This is really annoying me as I rely on my bookmarks tremendously.
try this:
Open stock browser and under settings choose clear cache and deletehistory

[Q] Camera Black Screen issue - stock.

So I am having a problem with my Thunderbolt.
To start off, not rooted, all stock.
The problem is the seemingly infamous black screen camera app problem. In a nutshell, when I try to open the camera, it goes and stays on a black screen forever, with no buttons other than Home working.
If I hit Home, the camcorder app seems to be running in the background and eats up battery like there's no tomorrow, phone is dead in a couple of hours at most. While the camcorder app runs, every other app that uses camera reports an error stating the camera is in use and to reboot the phone. If I reboot, and try to use any other camera app (from barcode scanner, to papercamera and so forth), it also does not work.
I have read on the issue quite a bit and here are the things I tried with no success:
- clear data for the camera app.
- pull battery for a while.
- install a new camera app and try it.
- use the voice recorder.
- delete all camera pictures and videos off the sd card and memory.
- try it without an sd card.
- gently press the camera to see if it was loosened.
I hope the camera hardware is not dead, and factory reset seems to be the last thing to try. Any ideas of a good way to record what apps I have installed so I can easily reinstall them after, or a backup/restore method?
Or any other suggestions on things to try? It worked fine up to Friday, then Sunday it had issues. Between Friday and Sunday I used my phone like normal and installed two non camera related apps which I have tried uninstalling to see if they were the culprits.
Root and install Titanium Backup. Use the batch operation to backup all of your apps (and data if you choose), then factory reset, see if the camera works, reinstall TB, restore your apps (and data), and see if it still works. The camera itself really can't come loose, at least not without losing the lens cover and quite a bit of force.
Hmm, did a factory reset and the issue continues. Any other suggestions? Or do I resign myself that the hardware is gone?

Methodology for Tracking Down Crashes?

I've been having crash events on my Galaxy Nexus, which creates bugreport text files and screen shots on a regular basis, not to mention popping up an Intent dialog asking me how I want to send crash info. It's an annoyance I'd like to correct, so I'm looking for ways to figure out and fix whatever is causing the problem.
Is there a good methodology I can run through to at least narrow down what software is throwing the errors and triggering bug reports? Failing that, is there a decent way to suppress them?
The crashes aren't predicable and seem to occur regardless of what app I'm currently using. Some (I think) occur when I'm not using the phone, and produce a screenshot of my lockscreen as debug info. I've done a fair amount of tinkering, including basic programming in Eclipse, so I'm wondering if I can use LogCat or some other debug tool to observe a crash. Or if I can look for a specific line of the 4 meg bugreport.txt to find what process is freaking. I just don't have enough experience with analyzing when things go wrong to know where to look.
Some simple facts about my case if you're interested in offering opinions:
-Been rooted on the Nexus for ages, but crashes only started fairly recently.
-Started roughly when (give or take a few days) I flashed to stock 4.0.4 and latest Verizon radios, because my collection of mods (maybe Clockwork Recovery) was preventing an OTA update from succeeding. Interestingly, it continued after doing a SuperWipe (of absolutely everything) and flashing in Jelly Bean with stock kernel.
-The radios were reflashed, but are the same between 4.0.4 and 4.1
-All the apps I use are all installed on both OS's. I don't particularly want to go through the time required to remove apps, wait for crashes, and reload them, particularly if there is a quicker solution.
I'm having the same issue. It has persisted through multiple re-images and wipes so It has to be something that I reload on the system, but I cannot figure out what it is...
I've tried digging through the crash reports and watching logcat but i haven't been able to reproduce the crashes on demand...
Update: Actually I have a theory that these crashes may actually be related to Google Wallet. My Secure Element is locked, but i don't have a need for wallet anyhow so I never got my device replaced. I don't remember having this issue before I switched my GNex to the Takju ROM (which included Wallet). This would also explain why the issue seems to persist between wipes (Each ROM I've loaded has always had Wallet pre-installed). I'm going to try using Titanium Backup to freeze Wallet and see if I get anymore crashes. I'll keep you posted.
Resolution:
The bug reports are being generated when USB Debugging is on and Volume Up, Volume Down, and Power are all hit. For me, this was happening frequently because my TPU case is fairly tight and it depresses the volume keys inadvertently.
Thread where I found the problem: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1451521

[Q] CyanogenMod freezing and/or rebooting

Hello all
After the recent nightly builds following the last monthly update (4.4.2 KK) I keep facing an annoying problem. The device keeps on getting unresponsive especially when I try to drop down the notifications panel. Then the device gets locked, sometimes changing the background and clears all open apps from the cache, where opening the app already was opened will have the app launched as if it was closed and not already in the background.
Besides, the device can make a soft reboot (showing CM logo and reloads the system without doing a full reboot).
Any idea what the problem could be? Any solutions suggested outside doing a full wipe?
Thank you very much!
tweetatoo said:
Hello all
After the recent nightly builds following the last monthly update (4.4.2 KK) I keep facing an annoying problem. The device keeps on getting unresponsive especially when I try to drop down the notifications panel. Then the device gets locked, sometimes changing the background and clears all open apps from the cache, where opening the app already was opened will have the app launched as if it was closed and not already in the background.
Besides, the device can make a soft reboot (showing CM logo and reloads the system without doing a full reboot).
Any idea what the problem could be? Any solutions suggested outside doing a full wipe?
Thank you very much!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It must be a newly introduced bug, though on my nook I just wait till it fixes itself and un-freezes - there's none of the other stuff you mention. Course I have a recovery backup where it sounds like you don't. Save you a lot of pain to make recovery backup before flashing updates.
I'm still trying stuff to see if there's a workaround, but probably need to wait for it to be fixed.
My only problem is still the camera (google camera) after taking some photos (2-10) it freez and i got can't connect camera errors, only restart mobile is solution.

Battery life (wakelock), Amplify, SD Maid, Auto Call Recorder, Chrome, APUS Launcher

Hi,
This is my first time specifically posting a question as a Q&A style thread so I hope I'm doing this right.
I have been using the Redmi Note 2 for about a month now. Overall, it's been a great phone (especially considering the price). However, I've been experiencing a couple of issues and I am hoping that some of you may be able to help.
I have rooted the phone but have not installed a ROM/kernel.
I have been using Wakelock Detector to track my battery life. Of most significance is com.baidu.map.location (NetworkLocation). I have attached the two screenshots showing the frequency of how often it wakes up my device. I tried to greenify it but it wouldn't allow me - it says "Sorry, "NetworkLocation" is ingreenifiable". Does anyone have any idea for me?
I have also been trying to use Amplify as another means to try and improve battery life. As mentioned, my phone is rooted, and the app prompted me to install the Xposed app which I did. However, after installing the app, it wants me to install the framework but it does not allow me to. I have attached the screenshot of this too.
Nova Launcher - Sometimes when I open the app drawer, the resolution of the app launcher appears funny. To fix it, I normally just press back and go back into the app drawer and it goes back to normal. I have attached a screenshot of what this roughly looks like. This is not a big deal but can be a little annoying. Has anyone experienced this?
SD Maid - I used to use this app on my old Galaxy S3 i9305 to clear out storage space taken up by unnecessary stuff. This app no longer works on this phone. I have attached a screenshot of the issue that I am having.
I have downloaded Auto Call Recorder from the app store with the intention of having it automatically record my phone conversations. It does not work but I am unable to figure out why. I have checked the settings and I cannot identify any obvious setting that is incorrectly configured.
Flynx - I have been trying to use Flynx as it appears to be an incredibly useful app, but it seems something is not working correctly. In the screenshot that I have attached, where it says "Tap on the bubble to open it!" I am assuming there is a bubble that is supposed to appear for me to tap, but it does not appear.
APUS Launcher/Clean Master - finally and maybe most worryingly, I sometimes get 2 or 3 apps "pushed" to my device prompting me to install it. I can only remember 2 at the moment; APUS Launcher and Clean Master. Fortunately, I am asked to give the app permission for installation but it worries me because it has occurred a few times and I did not download it at all. I do not have a screenshot of this at the moment, but I will do it next time it occurs.
I have been told that my provider (Vaya in Australia) sends out a SMS for "automatic update" purposes. I only spotted this because I have noticed that I was charged for 2 separate international SMS on 2 occasions when I did not send them (to a UK number, +44 7786209730). I am not sure whether this one is a phone problem or something else.
I appreciate any of your assistance in advance and I am sorry if I have not provided enough information. I am also not sure as to which issues may simply be app problems as opposed to a problem with MIUI software or Xiaomi.
Hope I will be able to get some assistance!
SD Maid - I used to use this app on my old Galaxy S3 i9305 to clear out storage space taken up by unnecessary stuff. This app no longer works on this phone. I have attached a screenshot of the issue that I am having.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does the crash happen when the dialog opens, or when you click the orange entry?
Try giving your sdcard a name, possibly doing it from a desktop computer.
Hi, the crash happens when I click on "Overview" then click on "To start press [refresh icon]" and then you just press there - what normally happens is it will give a overall summary of the phone.
However, I have just tried it again. When that error message comes up, instead of tapping on the listed entry (as is instructed), I press "Done" and it is able to give me a summary!
So for some reason it appears as though it doesn't work (at least from the error message), and I just press done and it still works.
Thanks for your reply nevertheless! Would not have figured that out had you not replied hahaha.
If you just press "done", SD Maid won't have access to your external sdcard.
Did you try installing the Xiaomi EU rom, since it's supposed to be cleaned from chinese apps (Like the baidu one).
Hi all,
Sorry it seems like I never came back to expand what I have done to try and fix these problems.
I ended up changing to Hermes ROM here http://www.smiui.net/redminote2_hermes.php
Most of the issues above are now solved, but there are some that are still present such as #2 and #5. So Amplify still doesn't work, but I think this is a hardware limitation and Auto Call Recorder still doesn't work. As for why Auto Call Recorder doesn't work, I don't know why, but I am not greatly bothered by it so I have not attempted to do anything to resolve that problem.

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